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Professor Eric Dannenmaier was asked by the Aarhus Secretariat of the UN Economic Commission for Europe to moderate a working session of international organization representatives and NGOs on public access to international forums dealing with the environment at the Palais des Nations in Geneva on 20-21 June. The workshop studied implementation of the Almaty Guidelines for Public Participation in International Forums (adopted in 2005 in Almaty, Kazakhstan), which provide guidance for the 46 countries which have signed or ratified the UNECE Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (adopted in 1998 in Aarhus, Denmark). The Almaty Guidelines deal specifically with implementation of Article 3(7) of the Aarhus Convention, which calls for state parties to promote public participation in international environmental decision-making processes.

Professor Dannenmaier was part of an expert working group which drafted the Almaty Guidelines during a series of meetings in 2004 and 2005, and he has monitored their implementation since then. The aim of the Geneva workshop was to support efforts by international forums whose work affects the environment (such as the World Bank, World Trade Organization, and various UN agencies) to increase transparency and public access to their work. Dannenmaier moderated a discussion about the challenges of identifying and engaging non-state organizations and communities interested in and affected by international environmental processes, and prepared a report for the Aarhus Secretariat on the outcomes of the discussion. Further information on the Aarhus Convention and the Almaty Guidelines can be found at http://www.unece.org/env/pp/ppif.htm

Much of Professor Dannenmaier's scholarship deals with legal mechanisms for bringing citizens and communities into international lawmaking processes to make them more democratic, and his work with the Aarhus Secretariat is a practical application of his research.

Professor Dannenmaier joined Indiana University School of Law - Indianapolis in 2007 after directing the Environmental Law and Policy Institute at Tulane University from 2001-2006 and serving as the Bretzfelder International Law Fellow at Columbia University from 2006-07.